Will the real Jordan Love please stand up?

Some NFL teams have struggled to find a franchise quarterback for decades.

And then there are the Green Bay Packers.

Since the Packers traded a first-round draft pick to the Atlanta Falcons on Feb. 11, 1992, to acquire Brett Favre as the team’s first leading quarterback since Bart Starr, the Packers’ quarterback transitions have been… well, dramatic in a personal sense, but seamless on the field. In the 2005 draft, the Packers selected University of California’s Aaron Rodgers with the 24th pick and let Rodgers sit behind Favre for three years before beginning a succession plan that would see Favre retire and return more often than The Who.

Rodgers has become arguably the greatest passer of all time, but the team still traded for the top pick in the 2021 draft, selecting Utah State’s Jordan Love with the 26th pick. This put Rodgers on his own path of “what happens to me?”, eventually leading to him being traded to the Jets on April 26, 2023 (as Favre had been a few years prior), furthering his own personal drama.

Now it’s Love’s show. Though there were some shaky moments early in the 2023 season (his one touchdown, five interceptions against the Detroit Lions and Las Vegas Raiders were particularly disconcerting), the third-year Packer ultimately put it all together more decisively than even the most optimistic Packers fan would have expected.

Love’s transformation has been real and impressive. In the first half of the 2023 season, Love completed 155 of 260 passes (59%) for 1,720 yards (6.6 yards per attempt), 12 touchdowns, eight interceptions and a passer rating of 81.9.

From Week 10 through the Packers’ divisional round loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Love completed 254 of 374 passes (67.9%) for 2,904 yards (7.8 per catch), 25 touchdowns, five interceptions and a passer rating of 107.7.

The Packers moved up from No. 12 in FTN’s rankings. Passed DVOA They were ranked first in the first half of the season (Weeks 1-9), but in the second half of the season they rose to second place behind the aforementioned 49ers.

At the stadium, there’s little doubt that the Jordan Love we all saw in the second half of the season is the Jordan Love we can expect to see going forward.

“What has always impressed me about him is his dedication and his work ethic is unwavering.” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst Speaking at the 2024 owners’ meetings in March, he said: “As we went through the second half of the season, I think there was a level of confidence, not just in Jordan but in our entire football team, that excited the team. But his work ethic, his approach to work, doesn’t seem to waver. That bodes well for the future.”

As of this writing, Love and the Packers are still working out what his second NFL contract would look like and what it would mean for the team’s future. For now, the Packers appear to have struck gold again at the game’s most important position, and other franchises can only look on in envy and amazement.

So the question remains: Which of last season’s Jordan Love will we see in 2024 and beyond?

A tough start under pressure led to a better result.

Love wasn’t a consistent passer entering the 2023 season, prone to drifting in the pocket, sometimes careless in sync between his upper and lower body and, when he did throw passes (especially deep throws), he made some players wonder what he was looking at.

These flaws were most evident under pressure early in the season, and Love’s eventual resolution of these issues made him a completely different quarterback under pressure later in the season.

From Week 1 through Week 9, when pressured, Love completed 26 of 60 passes (43.3%) for 329 yards (5.5 yards per attempt), two touchdowns, three interceptions and a passer rating of 51.3 (fourth-worst in the league behind Daniel Jones, Bryce Young and Mac Jones), which is not exactly what you’d want from a quarterback.

And since Week 10, Love has completed 59 of 109 passes under pressure (54.1%) for 901 yards (8.3 average per yard), nine touchdowns, two interceptions and a 101.5 passer rating — best in the NFL. LaFleur’s slick lifting helped Love, but it was more a function of how Love conducted himself as a quarterback when things got tough.

That made a big difference. Love is a better quarterback under pressure and that looks set to continue.

The move created a stir

Packers head coach Matt LaFleur is a student of both Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay, working with Shanahan in Houston, Washington and Atlanta, and with McVay in Washington and Los Angeles, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that pre-snap motion is a big part of LaFleur’s offensive concepts. Last season, the Packers ranked ninth in pre-snap motion dropbacks with 380 (the Kansas City Chiefs led the league with 574), and only the 49ers, Miami Dolphins and Los Angeles Rams had more motion rush attempts than Green Bay’s 375.

From Weeks 1 through 9, Love completed 81 of 126 passes in pre-snap motion for 805 yards, 306 air yards, nine touchdowns, three interceptions and a passer rating of 96.2, the 12th-highest passer rating among quarterbacks with at least 100 pass attempts in pre-snap motion.

In Week 10 of the divisional round, that all changed for Love, as he completed 160 of 224 attempts for 1,853 yards, 930 yards through the air, a league-high 17 touchdowns, one interception and a league-best passer rating of 119.5.

Love was the better quarterback down the stretch, but LaFleur’s motion concepts were also a factor. SatanicThis was about more than giving the quarterback an indicator for man/zone coverage: The Packers dialed up a motion beater that works for any type of coverage.

Still, that 27-yard pass to Jayden Reed with 8:42 left in the second quarter of a divisional-round game against the 49ers that ended Green Bay’s season was a perfect example of how Love benefited from his coach’s diabolical genius.

San Francisco was in Cover 3 with safety Logan Ryan dropping back from a two-high look and Tashaun Gipson staying on top. Receiver Beau Melton moved with Reed from a Twins look to the left into a near-formation, with Melton showing a sweep look across the backfield to create a quick outlet gap. Tight end Luke Musgrave took the top with a vertical route, and linebacker Dre Greenlaw had to target Melton in the flat, leaving Reed wide open over the middle for a 15-yard cross. The concept worked so well that Love could have easily created a gap to either Reed on the cross or Melton on the flat.

The Packers also like to motion to trip, sending two receivers up top to clear the coverage and have the third receiver run the intermediate outcut. Depending on the coverage, Love can either hit the intermediate or send him further down the field. In the Wild Card Round against the Dallas Cowboys, Dallas was in Cover 3. Reed (who motioned laterally) and Melton ran vertically, setting up a matchup between receiver Romeo Dubs and Cowboys linebacker Damone Clark, which wasn’t much of a matchup at all.

Play-action was another must-have strategy.

You’ll notice that both of these plays feature play-action under center, which shows another side of Love’s development. Young quarterbacks who struggle to see the field tend to avoid play-action under center because the fake requires turning your back to the defense, and in today’s NFL, the coverage in front of and behind your back can be completely different.

From Week 1 through Week 9, Love completed 43 of 63 play-action passes for 466 yards, 150 air yards, five touchdowns, three interceptions and a passer rating of 96.4.

From Week 10 through the end of the season, Love completed 81 of 108 passes for 1,053 yards, 537 air yards, seven touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 126.8. Only Lamar Jackson (9) had more touchdowns on play-action passes than Love during that time. Only Jared Goff (115, 82, 1,092) had more attempts, completions and passing yards than Love. Only Joe Flacco (546 and, you guessed it, 546) had more air yards than Love. Only Derek Carr and CJ Stroud had a higher passer rating than Love during that time.

Love’s play-action performance under center also improved, with his passer rating on such passes jumping from 97.6 from Weeks 1 through 9 to 130.1 in the second half.

Jordan Love was by every measure one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks in the second half of his first full season as an NFL starter. That’s a lot of value, and even more so if it holds up over the next few years. Love’s ability to fit the coaching staff’s preferred concepts and his maturity in and out of those concepts shows that this isn’t just a two-month thing.

Will the real Jordan Love please stand up?

“It’s been a tough year for him,” LaFleur said of Love. End of season press conference“You can’t forget that. He really has. To see his growth… the results speak for themselves, but it’s clear he’s grown as a commander. He’s an extension of us and the ownership he showed, the leadership he showed, I thought that was a great sign for us.”

Well, “extension” is an interesting word, as the Packers and Love continue to navigate contract questions. today The question is, who is Jordan Love the Packers are trying to extend? The player they’ve spent the last two and a half years developing, or the one who really broke out late in the season? 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw’s interception with 52 seconds left in a 24-21 divisional playoff loss was heartbreaking and a disappointing return to Love’s earlier YOLO tendencies.

But just about everything else about the situation told us the Packers had the player they wanted and it was time to make a trade. After all, why test the football gods when you’ve had such good fortune with a franchise quarterback?

(All advanced metrics are Pro Football Focus and Sports Information Solutions (Unless otherwise noted).